Curse

TaCktiX · Nov 08, 2007, 06:43 AM // 06:43

No offense, Longasc, but they'd better not get rid of PvP in any form. It may not be all it was cracked up to be, but it's still the best challenge you will get in Guild Wars. We complain about this or that needing a nerf cuz we want PvP to be as fun as possible for the community as a whole, not just the nubs who play the same overdone build over and over and over.

As for GW HM, 4 man areas, especially Charr-infested Ascalon areas, are something else. You go up against a party of 6 charr, with a Lingering Curse necro and a Power Block mesmer, and tell me that's not hard. And that's NOT an effect of higher stats, it's the addition of elite. Tyria definitely changed for the better when all the unique but eliteless characters got some elites that made a ton of sense (smite-heavy Shamans with SoJ, Freny-loving Bladestorms with Hundred Blades, e.g.) and made the whole thing more challenging. Quite a shame the other two major campaigns suffered from same-mob-different-level problems (who got tired of killing the FOURTH iteration of Insects by the time they hit Vabbi, then realized nothing changed when HM released other than a level difference?).

GW:EN, I think the difficulty bar has certainly been raised, mostly because of the monster skills used by each mob. Charr and Stone Summit don't really show them, cuz your party has to start dying for Charr to Gloat, and the SS are just up-leveled and variant forms of their lower Shiverpeak brethren. That and the atypical mobs (who positively hates wiping out Angorodons?) with unique unprottable challenges was a change for the better. I'm sure that more and more people will appreciate the different setup of GW:EN HM as time passes. That and how much Tyria still pwns all other campaigns...

bungusmaximus · Nov 08, 2007, 07:47 AM // 07:47

Little late for a thread like this, are people finally catching on to HM?

My only gripe with HM is that they just upped damage and skill activation speed so much. People who play ranger are put at a natural disadvantage while a curses necro kills stuff twice as fast as in normal mode. Some bosses are imba as hell too.

afflicted yiyo and [wiki]tin dao kaineng[/wiki] are very good examples, Yiyo doesn't even have an elite lololol.

As for the rest, I enjoy and appreciate HM, it gives me a choice, and tomes are just leetsauce.

Steboy93 · Nov 08, 2007, 07:53 AM // 07:53

I really enjoy hard mode now, i started like about a month ago and now have done cantha and elona and am halfway through tyira. The thing which annoys me is the 6-man maguuma areas, argh they are driving me mad. 12 moss scarab touch spike ftl

gloria vander belt · Nov 08, 2007, 08:01 AM // 08:01

Not much to say, i think Hard Mode is a great challenge, but D'Alessio Seaboard is kind of stupid in Hard Mode, the mobs spawn 10X as quick(and to make shore it was hard mode i did it in normal mode), and in normal mode it acctually waits for you to dispatch of the creatures who try and kill dorrian while u save him then the next 1 comes, but in Hard Mode u can barely kill the first group before the second comes, and when u finally got the first group down the third comes, and it becomes to much for even to monks to handle, oh and sometimes the creatures kill confessor dorian before showing up, and it wasnt like that in Hard Mode a week ago(but a random group rushed him and killed after saving him).

thats my complaint(if u call it one)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Government Flu

In relation to the normal AI of Guild Wars, hard mode presents a far superior challenge. Most of the people that will be complaining about Hard Mode being too easy will be veteran players with several guildmates using the most effective builds to conquer certain aspects of the game.

Agreed 100%, these guys should try doing it with heros and henchies, then they will know what a challenge is, or try doing it with 1 other guildie and there heros and they will still know what a challenge is.

tmakinen · Nov 08, 2007, 08:41 AM // 08:41

Having mobs that are 'just challenging enough' for any given player profile, and the notion that anybody should eventually be able to 'beat the game' are in direct contradiction with each other unless beating the game is a very small subset of available challenges, and it was exactly the opposite until HM came around, effectively doubling the game content. I can understand the design of HM from the developers' point of view - the current solution is by far the most straightforward way of implementing it, just think of all the effort needed for rebalancing the game if completely new paradigms were introduced through HM.

There have been many advances in mob composition and AI along the way but you can't have monsters that are 'too smart'. I remember all too well a particular AI update that taught certain monsters to kite, and one griefing Avicara Ardent that I chased all around Talus Chute. Every time I tried to kill it, it fled, and if I gave up pursuing it, it would come back to bugger me

Dual profession monsters and team synergy make GW:EN the most challenging part already, now what else could be done? One of my pet ideas is evolving monsters. The (up to) 8 skills on the bar are the 'genome' of a monster. If we implement the following mechanics:

* when a monster is created, its genome is randomly drawn from a pool of templates for that species of monsters
* every now and then a template is duped with some random changes to it (new template, mutation)
* the performance of every template is monitored through in-game statistic (like how many players are killed by monsters with that template)
* every now and then templates with the worst relative performance are removed from the pool (natural selection)
* every now and then two successful templates are randomly combined to a new one (cross-breeding)

This wouldn't be too difficult to implement but the effect would be huge, since it would bring self-balancing metagame on the PvE side and kill botting because monsters would constantly learn and adapt to the threat of bloodthirsty players

bungusmaximus · Nov 08, 2007, 08:59 AM // 08:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmakinen

This wouldn't be too difficult to implement but the effect would be huge, since it would bring self-balancing metagame on the PvE side and kill botting because monsters would constantly learn and adapt to the threat of bloodthirsty players

Lol you wanna include modules for evolution and natural selection? I'm not looking forward to meeting Jade Brotherhood in Tyria and elona

.

Introducing: The Jade Terrorweb Bladed Jotun of chaos ^^
Now that would be pwnage.

I wonder how long the am fah would last in your design.

Sweet Mystery · Nov 08, 2007, 10:05 AM // 10:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by bungusmaximus

People who play ranger are put at a natural disadvantage while a curses necro kills stuff twice as fast as in normal mode. Some bosses are imba as hell too.

Well I play a ranger and have completed Cantha and Tyria mission in Hard Mode and done 9 of 20 in Elona now. Also done all GW:EN quests in Hard Mode (hero handbooks ftw!). I didn't feel disadvantaged at all.

All I needed to do was get smart with my skills, get smart with my heroes/hench.

Jungle missions... SS Minion Master ftw.. disable minions till killed the pesky minion stealing scarabs and jobsagoodun!

However Aurora Glade annoyed me till used Bardbed Trap and Tripwire to halt the runners so could muller the hell out of them... but I managed it.

TBH... I love hard mode.... it's where the fun is. It's challenging. Soon I'll up my Vanquishing totals from the meager amounts they are now to do all that... it's not too much of a challenge but when get minced, change setup and retry.

zwei2stein · Nov 08, 2007, 10:15 AM // 10:15

Hard mode was not what i expected it to be ...

Dual professioned mobs, randomized encounters, strong teambuilds

basically, challenge not originated from bigger numbers, but from design and variety.

---

Really, instead of now-you-must-think mode, it is just meh. it it werent for better rewards, i wouldnt touch it because gameplay itself is not better or mroe fun than NM.

MagmaRed · Nov 08, 2007, 10:28 AM // 10:28

Hard Mode would have been much better if they would have altered the skill sets and classes of monsters instead of just boosting their levels and attributes.

GW:EN does exactly what I am talking about. Monsters have secondary classes and use skills from it. Conjure on melee and Rangers adds some nice extra damage. Rez on non Monks makes you target select better.

20 attribute points is alright I guess, but variety is more difficult than intensity.

freaky naughty · Nov 08, 2007, 11:15 AM // 11:15

If they had altered the skill sets, improved their AI, and given them dual professions but kept their levels the same as usual there would be a lot less challenge in killing them.

With improved skill sets and dual professions they pretty much have deprived forms of what we have. Anyone can improve their skill set to own a regular foe with good skills. Dual profession would help but there aren't any skills they can use that will actually pose problems for us. And last, increased AI was what Anet used to stop farmers, in combat, kiting away doesn't do you much if the opponents (us) are gonna chase you.

I don't like the way they just superbuff the enemies but if it's a challenge people want, then Hard Mode fits that description perfectly.

fenix · Nov 08, 2007, 11:25 AM // 11:25

The problem is, the majority of Guru posters are under the false impression that PvE, and Hard Mode PvE is difficult. It isn't, they're just bad. Go look at the Screenshot Section, at the "Show off your Titles" thread. If that many people can get the Hard Mode titles, clearly it isn't hard. Bad players saying it's hard, makes other bad players agree, leading to a general consensus that it is. Anet being bad at CR, as we all know they are, follow the views of fansites, and therefore change things based on terrible players. Which leads to the good players making up 'complaint' posts, and quitting.

PvE is easy, you all just suck. Except for the people in this thread who don't. And around, <3 around.

crazy diamond · Nov 08, 2007, 11:34 AM // 11:34

Wether people suck at the game or not only matters insofar as wether or not they are the majority. When you get right down to it the designers goal is to create a game that will suck players in and keep them playing. Creating a genuine challenge is secondary to that. If everyone bitches and moans that it's too hard, then they're going to react to that, not because it's true, but because it ultimately benefits them.

bungusmaximus · Nov 08, 2007, 11:57 AM // 11:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by fenix

PvE is easy, you all just suck.

What were you thinking? ad hominem attacks aren't nice so let's just insult everyone?

Not many here in this thread is complaining about difficulty, just design flaws. I think HM has just about the right difficulty for me to make it fun.

shirosae · Nov 08, 2007, 12:11 PM // 12:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeek Aran

I did not write the following sentence, but it seems to be the belief of many.

"ANet showed that they are incapable of creating a challenge in PvE with mob AI (just jack their levels/HPs/speed/etc. up)"

If this wasn't good enough... what would make these types happy? I'm asking out of curiosity, as I'm fine with the difficulty of the game. [Slaver's + Ascalon Hardmode makes me happy]

Hard Mode is bad, because giving monsters reduced cast time and reduced recharge time reduces the effectiveness of interrupts and disabling.

Giving them increased attack speed and movement speed reduces the effectiveness of some snares a little, and increases the effectiveness of damage-on-attack hexes massively.

In short, it pushes players away from active disruption, and towards sitting under layers of passive blocking and damage reduction.

So what's bad about that? The bad bit is that if you do that, Hard Mode really isn't very hard. In fact, it's often less involved because the most effective way to play is the most passive way to play.

Gwen did some mobs right; dual professions, reasonable skillbars and party composition. If Nightfall had had that mob design, there would have been no need for the power creep, or the Lightbringer grind that resulted in all the other title grind, or the PvE skills.

If there had been no need for the power creep, maybe PvP and PvE would still have somewhat compatible needs, and skill balances wouldn't be so frequently ineffective.

bungusmaximus · Nov 08, 2007, 12:15 PM // 12:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by shirosae

In short, it pushes players away from active disruption, and towards sitting under layers of passive blocking and damage reduction.

So true, but I personally don't complain, because active disruption doesn't apply to heroes and henchmen. Heroes have the reflexes, but they don't interrupt the most dangerous skills. More active disruption would automatically call for more full human teams, and I don't know if I can always muster the patience for that.

fenix · Nov 08, 2007, 12:17 PM // 12:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by bungusmaximus

What were you thinking? ad hominem attacks aren't nice so let's just insult everyone?

Not many here in this thread is complaining about difficulty, just design flaws. I think HM has just about the right difficulty for me to make it fun.

Ad hominem? Bah. Ya'll know me, still the same ol' G, cuz I'm A-T-C.

Hard Mode doesn't have design flaws, the AI isn't advanced enough to make it 'hard', so they just make it so things hit bigger and take less damage.

crazy diamond · Nov 08, 2007, 12:20 PM // 12:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by fenix

Hard Mode doesn't have design flaws, the AI isn't advanced enough to make it 'hard', so they just make it so things hit bigger and take less damage.

You don't think that's a flaw?

bungusmaximus · Nov 08, 2007, 12:25 PM // 12:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by fenix

Hard Mode doesn't have design flaws, the AI isn't advanced enough to make it 'hard', so they just make it so things hit bigger and take less damage.

Hmm exactly that leads sometimes to boss damage going through the roof, I doubt the devs tested every boss out there when HM got released. When I am on my SS necro HM is actually easier then normal mode, that's also a bit dodgy if you ask me.

Go to gadd's encampment, take SS and reckless haste and go raptor farming, I never seen monsters drop that fast

Torqual · Nov 08, 2007, 12:27 PM // 12:27

Hard Mode is the new Normal Mode.

I'd agree that the multi-professioned groups represent the best challenge - Awakened in The Desolation for example. I have Elonian Vanquisher but haven't done Jade Brotherhood on HM yet...I look forward to this.

As for Hard Mode being 'bought' by Consumables, I heartily disagree with this. If you've messed up so badly with your builds and tactics that you get down to near -60%, you're better off starting again than wasting a Powerstone. These cost too damn much. The point is that you can clear your DP but if you suck then the next mob will just crush you down -15% at a time until very quickly you're in the same situation.

There is a misconception (by people that don't have the title) that everyone who got Vanquisher just waltzed through it, burning several powerstones per map. Really, this is not viable. I used just one, and it was the free one from a quest reward. When I went to replace it, I found out that Granite Slabs are 230g for 10. Forget that.

Start again and work out why you got killed FTW!

fenix · Nov 08, 2007, 12:34 PM // 12:34

Well, it's a flaw, but it's not to do with Hard Mode. It's the way GW AI works, so it's NM too. It's not specifically a HM thing, it's a Guild Wars thing.

tbh, Hard Mode would only be 'hard' in my eyes if it was like fighting a GvG every time you had to do something.